This illustrated photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 22, 2022 shows Elon Musk’s Twitter account displayed on a mobile phone screen with the Twitter logo displayed on the screen in the background.
Jakub Porzycki | Null Photo | Getty Images
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Sunday that the last few months have been “very tough” but that social media companies are “going to breakeven now.” CNBC was unable to independently verify this claim.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said in a tweet “I had to save Twitter from bankruptcy,” he said, while holding roles at other companies.
“I wouldn’t want that pain on anyone,” he wrote.
Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Since buying the company for $44 billion late last year, the acquisition of Musk’s recently adopted nickname of “Mr. Tweet” has been a rocky one.
According to the tech newsletter Platformer, Twitter’s daily earnings are 40% down year-on-year In January 2023, hundreds of top Twitter advertisers stopped or reduced their spending. One company estimates that Twitter’s ad revenue fell by 70% year-over-year in December. Reuters reported.
Some of the changes Musk has implemented on Twitter, including restoring accounts of controversial figures, including neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin, have led to brands leaving the platform and outcry from civil rights leaders. I got
In a November tweet, Musk acknowledged that the company suffered a “significant drop in revenue” after advertisers paused spending on social media platforms.
As of the end of 2022, Musk claimed that Twitter was no longer “the highway to bankruptcy,” but it was still “unsafe.” All-In Podcast Episode Along with his longtime friend and Twitter investor, angel investor Jason Calacanis, and Craft Ventures co-founder and partner David Sacks.
Twitter has been sued for failing to pay various partners, vendors and former employees since Elon Musk took over. As an example, Florida-based Private Jet Services sued Twitter for failing to pay him $197,725 for transportation services.In another case, the landlord of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters sued the company He is said to have failed to pay about $6.8 million in rent in December and January.
Under Musk’s control, Twitter has expanded its workforce through mass layoffs, other layoffs, and internal changes that have forced many to resign, including the termination of a permanent work-from-home policy put in place under former CEO Jack Dorsey. reduced.
Labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan has filed hundreds of requests for arbitration and a proposed class action lawsuit against Twitter on behalf of affected employees. Tweet of JanuaryFormer Twitter employees who have been fired or forced to resign, she claims, owe more severance pay than Musk’s team provided.
Besides cutting costs, the company is looking to add new revenue streams. Earlier this year, in January, Twitter auctioned everything from kitchen utensils to office supplies.
The company also launched and relaunched its Twitter Blue subscription service in December, after Musk shut it down in November and postponed it. and decided to retire all free access to the API.
The multi-millionaire has been accused of getting distracted, borrowing talent from Tesla to back him on Twitter, sparking political controversy on Twitter, and using a number of people to finance the acquisition of Twitter. Tesla faced significant shareholder backlash after selling $1 billion worth of Tesla stock. .
In a tweet on Sunday, one Twitter user expressed concern about how much Mask has on his plate.
‘I’m worried about me too,’ said Musk wrote a reply.
